


Family Recipe

by cognomen



Series: Cognomen's List of Things that Aren't Snakes [2]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Anachronisms, Complete, Cooking, Gen, M/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-10-22 10:14:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17660789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cognomen/pseuds/cognomen
Summary: Hank finds a package of unopened field  notes sitting in the junk drawer in his kitchen while he’s rifling through it for an unbroken can opener.February Ficlet Challenge, Day 2 - Blank Book





	Family Recipe

Hank finds a package of unopened field  notes sitting in the junk drawer in his kitchen while he’s rifling through it for an unbroken can opener. The one he carries in his work coat is only half full, and he has a box of them held together by rubber bands in his closet that attest to how many he usually goes through in a month. When he started as a cop, cell phones were all still on T-9 interface and tablets were only a twinkle in Steve Jobs’ eye. He’s kept his paper habit long after the advances in technology have made it almost ludicrous, but in the year he’s been partnered with Connor, his consumption of pages has drastically reduced.

Because like so many other things about Connor, his memory is infuriatingly perfect. Every detail of the interactions he has and crime scenes he’s sampled and processed is immediately available and easily cross-referenced. Hank still takes a note or two, but he usually just has to ask Connor.  _ Maybe that’s makin’ me lazy. _

Hank drops the package on the counter and forgets about them for two days, until Connor comes over and tidies them out of the way in one of his weekly cooking sessions. 

“I’m still not clear what the point of this is,” Hank complains halfheartedly, as Connor rattles his ancient cookware over the stove burner and the kitchen fills with the rich smell of cooking mirepoix. “Can’t you  just install a cooking module and be perfect at it?”

“I could, but it’s difficult for me to understand subjectivity,” Connor says. “So I need your help, and it would waste food if I didn’t practice cooking for someone else.”

“What?”

“I want to know if I’m getting better.”

Hank processes this, and thinks it’s a downright lousy excuse to check up on him every few days. But it’s also a human thing, a  _ partner _ thing, so Hank cracks the thing plastic off the cover of the notebooks sitting on his kitchen table, perfectly squared with the edge, and makes an honest attempt to review what he’s tasting. 

_ Needs more salt. Also, tastes like it came from a jar. Formulaic. Needs some kind of personal touch.  _

It’s about all he can manage to say about otherwise passable pasta sauce. He hands the note over. “Can’t you  just analyze it and tell?”

“No,” Connor admits. “I tried that, but you always expressed displeasure when I cooked by breaking ratios down into formulas.”

“Recipes, Connor. When you cook, it’s a recipe,” Hank says. “And your Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich was extremely week. Needed more Jelly.”

Connor makes the face he makes when he stops himself from explaining a choice to Hank. Instead, he says, “I’ll work on it,” and tucks the paper into his pocket.

Hank hands over a whole empty book. “You should write them down.”

“I remember exactly what I’ve done in every iteration,” Connor says, reaching for the book anyway. Hank knows his weakness; Connor isn’t used to being able to own things, so everything he gets to keep is a novelty.

“Of course you do, and so did my grandma, but nobody can make grandma’s spaghetti sauce unless grandma writes the recipe down for the rest of the family,” Hank says. 

“I could just e-mail it to you, if you wanted to try it yourself.”

“That’s not as personal. In a family, you got family recipes. Usually on old natty index cards in three different versions of cursive,” Hank says. “Just try it out.”

Connor humors his old fashioned ways, and tucks the book into his pocket with a grateful expression written in his warm brown eyes.


End file.
